Untitled

New Zealand Herald, Volume II, Issue 554, 22 August 1865, Page 5

MINISTERIAL EXTRAYA GAN CE. Amoxo-t the Parliamentary papers lately laid upon the table of the House is one containing memoranda between nis txcellencv and Ministers. Many of these memoranda have been already published, but ai page -'■> iil lvl the subjoined, which are of sutilcient importance to call for passing comment. General Cameron appears to have possessed in an eminent degree, the happy oualitv of at once seeing and seizing the salient points of rhe question before him. and hence it is -that in his literary skirmishes with the Governor and Ministry, though oftimes entangled in the mesb.es so subtily woven around him. lie lias nevertheless, by striking at the weakest points, cleared his war through all. by a succession of keen sharp cutting blows, wnieh have left their indelible marks upon his opponents. Each partv claims the victory. The Governor and his Ministry in that they retain possession of the field. The General, that his attack", if it did nor rout, has, at any rate, completely crippled his adversary. Throughout the whole course of these memoranda General Cameron has had the best of it. Those who will only read them carefully through cannot but rise with the conviction that while the General retires from the field, with his face to the foe and with a shout of defiance, he remains unscathed, while he leaves the enemy shattered and broken. The old soldier in his letters tears away the veil of hypocrisy, and the m'nds and actions of Governor and Ministers stand forth to the public unmasked. Trickery and craft, duplicity in all its shades, from sinuosity to barefaced mendacity.are openly exposed.and. in the case of his Excellency, culminate in the unanswered charge contained in the General's letter of the Ist ot June, when writing to his Excellency he says " Instead ot entering into any correspon- " dence -with your Excellency on the unwar- " rantable statements made in that despatch, it is my intention to deal with it as I did " with the two previous despatches of your •'Excellency. Nos. 33 and 54 of the 27th

"ApriL ISU-j. of which you sent me copies. " viz., to furnish her Majesty's Government " with fall information on all the facts, some " of which you have misrepresented, and •' the most important of which i/on have '■m>t--11 ted. Your despatch is thus only calculated " to mislead." Sir George Grey winced under this charge. He could not deny the truth of it, so he stood upon his ' dignity, and refused to answer ir. Nor did the Ministry escape the trenchant blows of an honest and honorable minded man, who had by chance found himself one of the New Zealand Executive. -4{rain and againheexpused,as an iniquitous job,the commencement of a war of aggression entered into at "Wanganui at the very moment when the Ministrv would, had the House only backed them, have authorised the immediate withdrawal of the troops. He clearly saw, and he did not hesitate to declare the truth of which hebecame aware, that the war at "\\ anganui was being made the cover for an iniquitous piece of land jobbing—the purchase of the"Waitotar:iblock from the wrongful o\\ ncrs. He did not hesitate to accuse the Ministry of' caring little how the blood of the officers and men of the British troops was sacrificed so long as their political ends were carried out thereby ; for he saw clearly enough that the "Wanganui war —road-making expedition it was then called —was undertaken, and the sweeping and immediate dismissal of the troops laid for the moment aside, to secure the support and the votes of the Wellington party. W as it unnatural that lhc General should look at this as trafficking the blood of his men for political support? Need we be astonished to find that the public at home view it in the same light ? In tlie memoranda before us the General deals a hard blow, and which they evidently severelv felt, at the Ministry for their wilful and reckless expenditure of the colonial funds. lie was quite justified in reminding them, as he did, of their own extravagance, when the Ministry came to him suing in forma pauperis for the use of the Imperial funds. " The colony appears," be says, " to have " experienced no difficulty in raising funds

'"to remove tin-seat of Government from "Auckland to Wellington; to purchase G,>vernnient. I louses, residences for M i ilisters, "increasing the number of Ministers, 'and augmenting tlieir salaries; paving " large sums .is eonijieusat ion to Tirtniki* 'settlers; and entering into a costly new postal service to England in addition to the " existing one." The Ministry endeavours to clear themselves of these charges, but sink onlv deeper into the mire. Here again, as heretofore, they deprecate the entertainment by the General of any political feeling, but they seem to forget that he too was, as was each one of themselves, a member ot the Kxecutive Council, and had a voice in every measure discussed there. The removal ot the sear of Government, it is true, had been decided upon by the Legislature previous to the advent to ollice of the present Ministry, but the period for that removal had not been laid down ns expedient while yet the suppression of rebellion remained to be accomplished. The temper of the House in Ist? 1- was not in favour of so immediate a removal of the seat of Government", nor in the money voted for the necessary expense of removing it at a future day did they contemplate the cost of erecting private houses as residences tor Ministers, ami even furnishing them Mr. "Weld slurs this hitter charge over entirely, as well he may.

Mr. A\*eld is unhappy in his reply to the charge of unnecessarily increasing the number of .Ministers. Granted, for the sake of argument, that the pressure of business has increased, let its ask the cause. The removal of the Seat of ('•ovevhinrnt to Wellington. But will Mr. A\ eld pretend to say that the colonial business connected with the "\\ anganui campaign is in any way comparable with that connected with the conquest of Waikato, where, in addition to the keeping up the supply of stores for the Imperial troops as tliev advanced inio the enemy's country, the then Colonial Government had the " pressure of business" connected with a large militia force also to attend to. Then, live Ministers conducted the business of the Colony, one of whom even could be spared on public business in England. Nov it would seem that it reijtii:'es seven to do the work which even Jour did then, and not only has an addition been since made in the actual numbers of .Ministers, but also in the chiefs of departments under them.

An Inspector of Customs lias boon appointed. and a second head has also been appointed in the Native department. and even now there is a talk of the appointment of a Solicit or (leneral ! Thr'n. Mr. Fox. without the assistance of this Native Secretary, performed the whole duties of Colonial Secretary and Native Minister, and leader of the House of Representatives : anil nov. that there is less to do. Mr. Weld tinds the duties of both offices too much for him ft hey are indeed ). .11111 requires the assistance of an Acting Colonial See ret a rv. and a N alive Min is! or.! ho latter requiring the appointment under 11i ill again of an oilieer to do the actual work o: the head of the department. During the late administration, when the real work of the suppression of rebellion was in h:m I — when tlie tune and brains oi the (loverumen; were taxed to the u'most. four ministers — Messrs. Wliit.iker. Fox. Kusse'd. an I («■!!- lies (tor Mr. Wood was in England i—conducted the a Hairs of the colony. Now we 'iave a miuistrv composed of Messrs. W eld. Sewell, Vitzherbert, Fitzgerald, Richardson. Atkinson, and J.C. Richmond. to say nothing of the increased assistance aii'ordedthem.aswe have already shown, in their several departments. Mr. "Weld in his justification says. " the usual number of Ministers lias been six."' This is simply an untruth. As we have said before, there were but five Ministers in the preceding Ministry, and of these one was for a considerable portion of the time they were in otlice engaged on public business in England. As regards the salaries of Ministers, we can only say that whether hb'her or lower than the average of past years they are too high. One thousand per annum is too high a rate of pay for the services of a fifth-rate politician, such as anyone of the present Ministry, when the great nation of the United States of America pays each of its Ministers no larger a salary than 3500 dollars, or £700 a year of our currency. The salaries of Ministers are not on a lower proportionate scale than those of Ministers in other colonies— for whatever may be the salary paid to Ministers in those colonies, the states they serve have not sulfered the infliction of a'Weld.Ministry, to bring them to a state of political bankruptcy, as has New Zealand. Of the Panama contract we shall say little. We are writing for colonial readers, and the whole facts of this piece of jobbery have long been before them. Granted, again. for the sake of argument that the Panama service is a desirable one for New Zealand—it is. nevertheless, at any rate desirable for Wellington—we all know that the arrangements urea'' job"—that the service could have been undertaken for £20,0(JU per annum less had one of our .Northern coal-field ports been made the port of call.